Indy 4: Is There a Consensus?Ford and Lucas say it's ready to go.by Paul Davidson and Stax[0]

March 17, 2006 - We've heard a lot of things about the Indiana Jones IV script lately. Lucas suggested that a draft by Jeff Nathanson (Rush Hour, Catch Me if You Can) had been approved and was ready to shoot, while director Steven Spielberg said he was having War of the Worlds collaborator David Koepp work on it some more.

The latest from star Harrison Ford, however, is that Spielberg does have a script he is satisfied with. "Steven Spielberg and I now have a script in hand that we both like. I believe that we can start with the filming soon," the actor told German magazine Fit for Fun, according to E! Online.

Spielberg's publicist Marvin Levy also told E! Online, "[The script] certainly seems to be [in the can], but I don't think we're at that point where we have a firm start date. But this is certainly the closest where we've been in this whole development process."

Lucas spoke about Indy IV again this week, this time with Time magazine. "I've been working on Indy 4 for ten years. So I've been more involved, so no matter how you count it on this one I'll be more involved than I'll have ever been on the other three put together. It's taken forever to get a script of it. That's my part of it."

Lucas also gave a caution, apparently aimed at the same sort of fan base that had conjured up their own ideas of what the Star Wars prequels would be like and then came away disappointed. "You know the problem there, which is not a problem, is that we don't have to make that movie. All we can do is hurt ourselves, all it's going to do is get criticized. I mean it's basically Phantom Menace we're making. No matter how you do it, no matter what you do, it won't be what the other ones were in terms of the impact or the way people remember them."

Lucas also mentioned that Spielberg was planning to use his own tried-and-true film techniques while making Indy IV, instead of Lucas's cutting-edge digital technology.

"He'll win. He's the director. The great thing about working with Steven is that we don't have agendas. We want to make the best movie possible, I want him to be happy. If he wants to shoot it on film and cut it on a Movieola... Hey, he's got a great editor. Michael Kahn can cut faster on a Movieola than anybody can cut on an Avid. And I don't really care."

So where do things stand now? A high-level production source has confirmed for IGN FilmForce that, as was previously reported , Spielberg is indeed taking a year off, despite all the recent progress on the Indy IV front. Script revisions will continue, as will development on the Oscar winner's long-planned Abraham Lincoln project. Hang in there, Indy fans!

And now Lucas, of course, has his eye on another American classic: Indiana Jones. The fourth chapter in the film series, with Lucas producing and close pal Steven Spielberg directing, begins shooting in Los Angeles this June. Then it's on to several top-secret global destinations. Lucas teases that one will include a waterfall.

Jokes have been made about how the franchise will keep 64-year-old star Harrison Ford up and running, but Lucas doesn't see that as a problem.

"He's not running in any of the movies," Lucas says. "He's either on a horse or driving a car or a motorcycle. And he'll play his age in this movie with what's appropriate. The chases are more suspenseful than speedy. Like the rolling ball in the first film  it's not that he's running that fast, it's that there's a giant ball coming at him. And he will get beat up, which is a tradition for us."

Lucas, who also is in pre-production on a "bare-bones, action-heavy" Star Wars live-action TV series, says there'll still be plenty of action in "Indy 4," the official title of which he hopes to keep under wraps until the first trailer hits theaters around Thanksgiving.

Sean Connery has yet to sign on as Indiana's father, Dr. Henry Jones, but Lucas says, "We're still trying."

It wasn't his idea to cast Cate Blanchett as Ford's new leading lady, he says. "That's who my director wanted, and I always bow to the wishes of my director," Lucas says of Spielberg. "I approved it because she seemed like a good idea. When I met her at the Academy Awards, I told her, 'Hey, you work for me now!' "

Last Crusade is on my short list of Perfect Movies. I might be biased from loving it since I was wee, but there it is. It's one of the best scripts ever, there's hardly a line that's not quotable, and it's definitely the funniest of the Indy movies.

I'm burying my career so substantially in these interviews that it's painful. But I think that there are some questions that demand honest answers. I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged. And if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization . There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about . By 2020, fifty percent of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent." - US weekly magazine 'World', 20th December 2003.

"There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we darent bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural thing as well By 2020, fifty percent of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent And dont forget, coupled with this there is this collapse of numbers. Western Europeans are not having any babies. The population of Germany at the end of the century is going to be 56% of what it is now. The populations of France, 52% of what it is now. The population of Italy is going to be down 7 million people. Recognizing the fundamental politically incorrect nature of his words, he concluded by saying, "I am for dead white male culture"  utilizing a derogatory catchphrase used on college campuses to describe Western Culture." - US weekly magazine 'World', 20th December 2003.

LOS ANGELES  Another Academy Awards ceremony has come and gone. If you're like me, you spent much of it on the edge of your seat, silently praying that none of the winning actors would launch into a noxious left-wing tirade, featuring such sagacious bromides as "War is Not the Answer" (to what?).

It's a common perception that Hollywood is a liberal town, and rightly so. There are a few bold souls, however, who are willing to swim against the tide.

One of these starred in the film that won the most Oscars last Sunday night. He's John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli in The Lord of the Rings (as well as Sallah in the Indiana Jones movies, in addition to many other roles). His comments over the past month or so regarding world affairs have ignited a firestorm of controversy in his home country of Great Britain.

Rather than taking up the banner of global warming, AIDS, world peace, or some other trendy cause, as most of his colleagues are prone to do, the Welsh-born actor has chosen as his particular hobbyhorse the growing demographic crisis in Europe.

He also regularly heaps praise on President George W. Bush and his war on terror, including the invasion of Iraq. "There are at least four or five [officials in the Bush administration] who could hold their own against the Founding Fathers," he says. This is blasphemous speech in Europe and Hollywood alike.

In a recent interview at a European-style café near Hollywood's Universal Studios, Rhys-Davies jokes about his candor, saying with a laugh that betrays a little nervousness, "Every time I open my mouth, I may be committing career suicide."

But he does not hold back, flatly stating, "I think that radical Islam has declared war on the West."

"It's not a question of the decency of Muslims," he says, many of whom he admires and respects. But "radical Islamist groups are controlling, manipulating, and forming the attitudes of Muslims throughout Europe," he adds. And Rhys-Davies fears that, due to their demographic advantages, their culture may eventually swamp or supplant the indigenous cultures of Europe.

Europeans are having fewer and fewer children, while migrant populations, predominantly Muslim, are growing much faster. Most European fertility rates have dropped so much that they have declined below the break-even point, to the degree that populations are actually beginning to shrink.

If the current trend continues, Rhys-Davies says, "The population of Germany at the end of the century is going to be 56 percent of what it is now. The population of France will decline to about 52 percent."

Meanwhile, Muslim immigrants are having babies at a much faster clip, so that in time, they may become the majority population throughout Europe.

"Last year, 56 percent of the babies born in Brussels were Muslim," Rhys-Davies notes. "In a matter of 20-50 years, we are going to see two to three countries become predominately Muslim  Holland, France, and possibly Germany."

This sort of talk, predictably enough, has provoked cries of "racism" from Muslim advocacy groups and left-wing critics back on his home turf. "We want an apology," demanded Mohammed Javed, chairman of the Muslim Society for Wales. "This could stir up racial hatred in society. It's ignorance, he should learn more about Islam...before he makes these comments."

At the same time, the far-right British National party, a fringe white-supremacist group, has tried to co-opt Rhys-Davies's message by reprinting some of his quotes on flyers they distributed at Lord of the Rings movie showings around the United Kingdom. Rhys-Davies strongly repudiated the BNP for their action; he belongs to the Conservative party, which has condemned the BNP as well.

"There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we daren't bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural [aspect] as well," Rhys-Davies has said.

It is the culture of fundamentalist Islam that concerns Rhys-Davies the most. "When I look at contemporary Islam, I see homophobia, forced conversion, genital mutilation, slavery, two million people being put to death in the Sudan because of their religion."

He also sees its hand in an ugly trend: "There is a rise in anti-Semitism in Europe unprecedented since the 1930s," he laments.

In his view, "Fundamental Islamism is a particularly brutish and unpleasant form of fascism." He fears that if it becomes the dominant culture in Europe, it will wipe out all that is good about Western culture.

"It's easy to lose a civilization," Rhys-Davies warns. "The values of Western civilization have brought so much good to the world: the notions of equality, democracy, tolerance, abolition of slavery."

Rhys-Davies sees these same themes espoused in The Lord of the Rings, observing, "[J.R.R.] Tolkien knew that civilization is worth fighting for. There are times when a generation is challenged and must fight to defend their civilization from annihilation."

Of course, others on the set didn't see it the same way. Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, wore a "No Blood for Oil" T-shirt during a promotional interview for the movie on Charlie Rose's PBS show.

Ironically, Mortensen's character in the movies is a military leader. And many have drawn parallels between the conflict in The Lord of the Rings with the war on terror. With a twinkle in his eye, Rhys-Davies confides that a friend whispered to him while watching Mortensen in The Return of the King, "Does he realize he's George Bush?"

Conservatives indeed are scarce in Hollywood. "You introduce a Republican to another in Hollywood, it's like a meeting between two Christians in Caligula's Rome," he observes.

Rhys-Davies does not appreciate the images of President Bush and America broadcast by Western media. "When Hollywood constantly projects that the West is weak, the military is corrupt, that big business is corrupt, it has to have an influence on Muslims," he says.

Rhys-Davies used to be a radical leftist, as a university student in the '60s. He first started to come around when he went to the local hall to hear a young local member of parliament by the name of Margaret Thatcher. "I went to heckle her," Rhys-Davies says. "She shot down the first two hecklers in such brilliant fashion that I decided I ought for once to shut up and listen."

It was the beginning of his eventual transformation into a conservative. Rhys-Davies's father was a colonial officer, but from a poor "working-class socialist" background, which Rhys-Davies absorbed into his bloodstream. He spent a large portion of his childhood in Tanzania, where his father was posted.

He says, "As a child, my father showed me a dhow in the harbor at Dar es Salaam and said, 'You see that dhow? Twice a year it comes down from Aden filled with boxes of goods. On the way back up it's got two or three black boys on it. Those boys are slaves. And the U.N. won't let me do a thing about it.'"

Rhys-Davies says that his father predicted our current state of affairs, once telling his son, "The next world war will be between Islam and the West. And it will happen in your lifetime."

He also regularly heaps praise on President George W. Bush and his war on terror, including the invasion of Iraq. "There are at least four or five [officials in the Bush administration] who could hold their own against the Founding Fathers," he says. This is blasphemous speech in Europe and Hollywood alike.